A Grande Series at Ace Airport Casino

The huge Alberta poker scene just keeps swinging. While the Circuit series tables were still being put away across the city, Ace Airport Casino kicked off its 2nd of three annual Grande series on Aug 21 with some satellite action, and the Seniors game on Aug 22.

The Seniors kicked off 12 days of poker action at Ace with the seventh day underway at the time of writing and the Main Event still to come starting Friday, Aug 30. While there is one big multi-day event already in the books, the Mini Grande kicked off its Day 1a on Aug 27 with a second starting day on the 28th and Day 2 on the 29th.

Action for the series finishes up on Sep 2, which is the Labour Day holiday in Canada so the series closes with the traditional Ace Holiday Special. Sprinkled in for the rest of the series are some Main Event satellites, a PLO/PLO8 mixed game, and daily Rise & Grind games at 10 am (Mountain time).

Mid Grande Goes to Pham

The first big event of the series is already complete. The $600 Mid Grande ran with Day 1 flights on Aug 23 & 24, crowning its champion on the 25th.

Ali Razzaq from Edmonton, who had a sweet late run to the final two tables at the end of his summer WSOP season, brought the big stack into Day 2. Pham was one of five people, including Razzaq, to bag more than 400k on either Day 1 but came into the final day in 4th place overall.

The win was Pham’s second career victory and biggest score yet, just capping his 3rd place for $19k at the 2022 Spring Super Stack, Calgary. He also just came off of a final table performance at the recent WSOP-C across town where he bagged 10th place in the closing Big 30 Stack game just a week before winning this one.

Day 2 chip leader Razzaq was only able to manage fifth for this one with Pham battling it out with Raghav Sharma, another familiar face on the local scene. Sharma has more than $125k in lifetime wins with this slotting in 3rd on his all-time cash list, right behind his win in this very event in December of 2023.

Honourable mention for this one goes to Michael Malm. He busted in 9th from the Mid Grande, but decided he wasn’t done with poker for the day. He jumped into the Sunday Madness that evening and took it down.

A Mini Trip

While Day 1a of the $350 Mini Grande is running as this article is being written, I’ll be making the three-hour drive from my home base in Eastern Alberta to Calgary for Day 1b of the game. And unlike most times I make that drive, I’ll be going for fun — or at least the poker version of it.

I’m ditching the notepad and laptop for the day to sit down at the felt myself. The action kicks off at 2 pm and I hope to make it for the start of play, but I typically end up getting there a bit late. I’ll likely tweet updates of the day so follow along to see my stunning victory through to Day 2 or, more likely, my two unsuccessful 1b bullets. I will note there may be some hope for me — this tournament was where I found my first-ever Day 2 bag in a multi-day MTT for my second-best score ever in 12th place ultimately.

Mini Grande Details

The Main Event

The biggest game is yet to come starting on Friday with the first of two Day 1 flights. While the Ace facilities and the Grande series are typically a bit smaller than other big Alberta events, the $1,100 Main Event will still give one player a $30k+ boost to their bankroll at least.

One of the great advantages of Ace Airport Casino is right in the name — easy access to Calgary International Airport. Travelers arriving in Calgary can be at an Ace poker table with chips in play within a few minutes of clearing customs. With Main Event flights on Friday and Saturday and the final on Sunday, poker aficionados in town for Friday business meetings could easily extend their stay, bag a Day 1b stack on Saturday, win the Main on Sunday, and still easily make a red-eye back home for work on Monday.

Grande Main Event Details